But after the three and a half days the breath[b] of life from God entered them, and they stood on their feet, and terror struck those who saw them. 12 Then they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, “Come up here.” And they went up to heaven in a cloud, while their enemies looked on.

13 At that very hour there was a severe earthquake and a tenth of the city collapsed. Seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake, and the survivors were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven. (Revelation 11:11-13)

God’s two witnesses, which He sends to Jerusalem during the great tribulation (Revelation 11:1-12) will lie dead in the streets for three and a half days before being resurrected by God and called up to heaven in the sight of man witnesses. Immediately afterwards God will avenge their murders by hitting Jerusalem with a great Earthquake. One must remember that the Inhabitants of Jerusalem at this date will probably all be Gentile followers of the Antichrist (11:2) since the Jews will have been driven into the desert. This Earthquake will kill seven thousand people at that time, and make the rest of them “terrified” so that they “gave glory to the God of heaven.” This praise that they give to God is not necessarily the result of saving faith: it could simply be the result of forced belief, unaccompanied by true repentance as is the case with demons (James 2:19). Most of these people have probably taken the Mark of the Beast, and are therefore sentenced to hell for eternity. They cannot experience life changing faith the way that true believers do.

It is probably at this time that the Israelis hiding out in the desert will counter attack and retake Jerusalem from the shocked and bewildered Gentiles. I have come to this conclusion because we know that the Jewish survivors had been hiding out in the desert for the last 1,260 days (Revelation 12:6), and yet manages to be defending Jerusalem during the battle of Armeggeddon (Zechariah 12:2-9), which probably takes place around day 1290 (Daniel 12:11).